


Would You Like To Share With The Group?

by gods_among_us (orphan_account)



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Character Death, Depression, Doctors & Physicians, F/F, F/M, I need to stop torturing these poor characters, Kindergarten Teacher Calypso, Kleptomania, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mysophobia, Post-Divorce, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Strippers & Strip Clubs, Suicide Attempt, Support Group
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-16 19:18:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7281385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/gods_among_us
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico di Angelo hasn't been up for much besides a drink and perhaps a heavy lecturing from his half-sister since Bianca died and he failed to follow in her footsteps. Of course, Hazel had to ruin his steady life of unhealthy alcohol consumption and isolation by forcing him into a support group for fellow suicide survivors. </p><p>Oddly enough, Nico finds that he feels closer to this patchwork group of suicidals than any other clique he'd been entrapped in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. κατάθλιψ - I

**Author's Note:**

> iT'S NOT THE BEE MOVIE SCRIPT THIS TIME LMAO  
> [here's my tumblr for those who wanna stalk me](http://luciferslittlekitten.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Anyways, I'm going to type in proper grammar now because this part's kinda important? I'm doing tons of research on all of the illnesses I'm gonna depict in this work, but I'm only human, so I may end up getting something wrong or just generally fucking something up. I'd like all criticism on that front to stay as constructive as possible, please! Thanks :D

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So what does it have to do with me?” Nico asked, furrowing his brows in perplexion. 
> 
> “It’s a… support group, Nico.”

Life was boring.

He scrubbed his dishes that lay dirty in the sink. The striking quietness of his home seemed to turn into a buzz in his ears. His eyes flicked up to the clock above his sink. _4:15._ He needed to hurry. If he was going to abide by his schedule, he would have to finish cleaning these dishes in the next fifteen minutes. The schedule, to his mind, was to be kept extremely strict. He needed to get things done, and if he didn’t follow what he’d set out for himself, then that would never happen. Of course, it also made him feel like some perfectionist asshole, or like he had OCD or something. He wasn’t _that_ bad, thank God.

He took the rag he was using to dry his tableware, drying the plate he’d been cleaning and stacking it atop its brothers. He picked up another plate and gave it the same treatment. And so on. He sighed. Wash, rinse, repeat. It really was tedious work. He hated doing the dishes, he’d despised doing them ever since he was a kid and his father would yell at him to do his chores. Of course, he’d have to do them, but he’d argue and argue and argue until his sis-

Don’t.

He refused to let his mind wander, or his eyes wander, or his body move from his responsibility after that near slip-up. He was supposed to be staying active, staying sane, and most important, staying alive. Of course, you’d think that would be the simplest.

If his three weeks in a glorified loony bin had anything to say about it, no, no it wasn’t.

Hazel said that actually doing stuff made this easier or something. She’d also been the one to mention that keeping a schedule would make things easiest. And she was a therapist, so she would know. He put the plate with the others and began to wash off some of the utensils, forks first. She also said trying to crack through the drinking was also a good idea, and then poured all of his alcohol down the drain when he finally got to trade in a hospital gown for skinny jeans. And threw away his flasks. But she only confiscated his shot glasses, since most of them he’d gotten in Italy and they were very valuable to him. And she told him that if he tried to drink, then she’d know. Little sister senses, apparently.

He set the forks aside and began to clean the knives.

So here he was, standing in front of his kitchen sink and washing his dishes for the first time in a long while. Usually Hazel picked up after him when she came over because after a while he’d just stopped caring about how filthy it was, so, of course, he didn’t have OCD, but recently she had put her foot down about his cleanliness issues. She was a lot like Bianca, in her perfectionist tendencies. Bianca would have given him much more than just a slap on the wrist for his state right now, though.

Would have, anyways.

He was about to pick up another bowl, but blinked down at it blankly after a second, like he’d forgotten what he’d been doing. There were a few beats of inactivity before he drew in a deep breath, let it out, blinked to clear his thoughts, and continued to wash the bowl. He wasn’t supposed to be thinking about her. It was weird, too. Like, sometimes he couldn’t even recall how she’d wedged her way into his thoughts, she was just there.

It’d been two years. He wanted to be over it, he really did, but he was furious that he couldn’t _just get over it_. It was annoying and embarrassing to no end that he couldn’t just suck it up and act normally for once. Talk to people again. Hazel had told him he barely seemed able to smile. Obviously, normal people don’t try to lock themselves in a shitty house and drink their life away. Normal people didn’t cut off their family and friends. Normal people don’t try to end their lives. Honestly, he should’ve just bought a shotgun and been done with it. But, _no,_ he had to take the pussy-ass, dramatic way out and he didn’t even get _that_ right.

 _Stop the train of thought before it crashes,_ Hazel always said to him, _that’s how you bring on your breakdowns._ So he stopped the train of thought, let it exit at the station, and tried to stop thinking things like that.

He set the bowl aside. He looked down at the sink that still had a few dirty dishes it. He felt drained of all energy to clean them, so he just turned off the water and wiped his hands on his jeans. He walked over to his fridge and opened it up, grabbing a can of Diet Pepsi and staring at the empty shelf where he _would_ have his liquid coping mechanism if _someone_ hadn’t deemed it a risk to his mental state.

Diet Pepsi was his substitute drink, and since he could not longer mix it with the alcohol to have his vodka soda, it would have to suffice on its own. He didn’t even drink that much, it’s not like he was some raving alcoholic who beat his wife and children. He snorted. Yeah, a wife, sure.

He popped the tab of the soda and shut the fridge door, and grabbed his phone off the counter, walking over to the couch and sitting down on his loveseat. He turned on his phone, skimming over the messages and a missed call from Hazel. He sighed, unlocking his phone and recalling Hazel so she wouldn’t freak out.

She picked up on the third ring.

“Nico!” She exclaimed, “I’ve been worried sick! Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.”

“What were you doing?”

“Cleaning.”

“Cleaning?” Hazel repeated, “Good on you, Neeks!”

“Yeah, whatever, I just did dishes like a normal person,” he rolled his eyes even though she couldn’t see him, “How great.”

“Come on, Nico, you gotta celebrate the little things! Oh, hold on,” there was a bit of shuffling and some muffled talking, “Em wants to talk to you. Is that alright?”

Frank and Hazel had been married for a good ten years, more or less, and were a pretty happy couple. Unlike his parents, who began getting irritable and both ended having affairs by the fifteen-year mark, Frank and Hazel had been going steady since forever. Hazel was his step-sister, her mom was Nico’s father’s second wife, and they had recently divorced for whatever reason. So, technically, they weren’t even step-siblings at this point, but Hazel was still his little sister in his eyes.

Emily-Marie, named after both her grandmothers, was their daughter, a bubbly kindergarten-aged girl (five? Six? He couldn’t remember, honestly) and she was pretty cute. She really was an adorable girl, but he hardly ever found it within himself to put on enough fake enthusiasm to content her. This was one of those many moments.

“Not right now, Hazel,” he muttered, rubbing his temples, “I’m not feeling up to talking to a kid.”

He heard some more muffled talking.

“She said she misses you.”

“Tell her I miss her too,” he said, taking a sip of his Diet Pepsi.

“Frank’s taking her out tonight for a little father-daughter time. Do you want to come over?” She asked, “It might be good for you.”

“I’ll be fine.”

She hummed. “Well, Nico, that’s what I wanted to talk about.”

“Me being fine? I am, you know, haven’t tried to off myself again. Progress.”

Hazel inhaled deeply. “It is progress, Nico, even if you see this as a joke.”

“I didn’t say I saw it as any joke,” he replied, “Just that it’s not great progress.”

“Progress is progress. Anyways, Nico, Frank was telling me that a nurse at his hospital recently left, and left behind a certain pending program of hers.”

Frank was a doctor and Hazel was a therapist. They’d met in college. They were extremely, _extremely_ ‘well-off’ (hint: that’s a rich person’s word for ‘rich’, and he would know because he’d grown up and even now remained a rich kid).

“Pending program? What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that she proposed an idea for a program that was still being decided upon when she had to take maternity leave,” Hazel clarified.

“So what does it have to do with me?” Nico asked, furrowing his brows in perplexion.

“It’s a… support group, Nico.”

“A support group.”

“Yeah!” Hazel sounded a little desperate, “A support group. You know, where you go to get support. From a group. And I’m gonna be running it from now on, so I’d appreciate it if you could, I don’t know, maybe sit in on a few meetings?”

“I’m not crazy, Hazel,” Nico said, taking a long drink of his Diet Pepsi to avoid talking any more.

“Well, I know that, Nico! And you aren’t supposed to use the ‘c’ word,” Nico rolled his eyes at the addition, but listened as Hazel continued, “But all of these people have issues like yours, so I think it might be nice for you to attend, if only once.”

“They all have depression, or whatever?”

“Well, no…” Hazel trailed off, planning her next reply, then said, “They’re suicide survivors.”

“What?”

“Nico, I’m serious, this will be good for you. When you talk to people with similar issues-,”

“Similar issues?” Nico asked incredulously, “Are you insane, Hazel? These people could be entirely different from me! I’m not going to a place to talk about how I _failed_ to kill myself!”

“It’s a good thing you failed!”

“Then how am I a survivor? Tell me that. I’m the one who wanted to end up a victim in the first place. I’m still… still- I’ve still got issues, look at me. You must think it too. No one even wants to be around me. ”

“Nico…”

“I’m not going. I don’t need to be lopped in with losers who are so pathetic, they can’t even succeed at ending their lives. That’s what I am. I’m a -,”

“Nico, stop it!” Hazel yelled, which stopped him because she normally didn’t raise her voice. Her voice sounded strained when she spoke next like she was on the verge of tears, and he felt bad instantly, “Stop it.”

“...I’m sorry,” he breathed, swallowing thickly. Why did he always get so upset over things? Hazel was just trying to help, and he flipped out on her. He closed his eyes.

“I..” Hazel broke off, then retried, “I just want to help you. Because… ‘cause goddammit if I’m going to let my brother live the rest of his life like some sort of ghost.”

Nico couldn’t be bothered to think of a response.

“I’ll be there to pick you up at ten in the morning tomorrow. The meeting runs for an hour. Be ready.”

Then the line went dead.


	2. κατάθλιψη II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, there was Valdez, who said, “This is a rather rag-tag group of cowardly fucks who thought that death was the answer for some damned reason. I think I like you guys.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [here's my tumblr for those who wanna stalk me](http://luciferslittlekitten.tumblr.com/)
> 
> !!!! chapter 2 is finally done oml 
> 
> i'm having a lot of fun writing this so i hope y'all are enjoying it lmao

Frank and Hazel lived in a huge two-story house on the end of Juniper Street. The house was red-bricked and had an in-ground pool, a huge patio with cushy outdoor furniture and a fire pit, and a playset for Emily-Marie. It was four bed and three bath and had a kitchen worthy of being a set on the Food Network. The furniture was plucked straight out of an interior designer’s wet dream and the home was never _perfectly_ clean, for they had a rambunctious daughter, but it was tidy. They belonged to a country club, went to church every Sunday, and on Wednesdays and Saturdays, they went horseback riding. They both came from respectable families and were raising a respectable daughter in a respectable neighborhood among respectable peers.

The only thing about their lives that wasn’t respectable was Nico.

Hazel never told him that, nor did Frank, and Emily-Marie was too young to understand, but he knew. He knew that Hazel’s work friends whispered about him and Frank’s country club friends looked at him like he was an alien. He wasn’t allowed to pick up Emily-Marie from school because the school didn’t trust that he was mentally stable. Once, Em had to wait two hours before Frank could get off work to get her and assure the staff that Nico was, in fact, trustworthy.

Nico missed that sort of thing. He’d been the goody two shoes Catholic boy growing up. The whole shebang: church charities, bible camp, straight As. He was shoved around in the halls and called a “faggot” more than he’d like, yes, but he was happy. He was dorky and wore bright blue braces and played Mythomagic with his friends over the lunch table, and he was happy.

It didn’t matter, though. He was only reminiscing because as he sat in the passenger seat of Hazel’s car and stared out at the suburban town that she lived in, he felt particularly nostalgic.

Now, he was the asshole that he’d laughed at in old movies and he was the grumpy and nearing middle-aged man who was single and sad and pathetic as all hell. He never would’ve thought it’d end up like this. Sometimes, he liked to pin it all on Bianca. He’d say it was her fault he locked himself up like some helpless princess in a tower, but unlike Rapunzel, he didn’t want anyone to rescue him.

The support group meetings were to be held in a disused meeting room at St. Charity’s Hospital. Once upon a time, the place had been called St. Jupiter’s Hospital. That was, of course, before the people who founded the hospital realized that Jupiter was not, in fact, a saint. They changed the name to a more fitting title before any discourse about it came along.

They pulled into a parking lot. Nico went to open the door, and when he found that it was still locked, he went to manually unlock it.

“Nico.”

He sighed when Hazel spoke and flopped back onto the seat. “Yes, sister dear?”

“Be a sportsman, will you?”

Nico raised an eyebrow. “I can try, I guess.”

He tried to open the door again, but Hazel said his name again.

“What?”

“This is good for you,” she assured him, voice confident and golden eyes locked on him. She looked positive, absolutely positive, that Nico was going to fit in.

He felt like it was his first day of middle school and his mom, his real mom, was dropped him off. Bianca had carpooled with her friends, but he was riding with his mom because it was his first day. He was kind of embarrassed, but he didn’t say anything about it.

Surprisingly enough, he didn’t get bullied or beaten his first day. He guessed that the movies he’d watched that held the reasoning for everything he thought about junior high was wrong, after all.

He got shoved into the lockers and got called “metal mouth” no less than three times on his second day, but it could’ve been worse.

“Yeah,” Nico said quietly, rolling his eyes and turning away to open the door.

Hazel let him leave this time, and she pulled her purse onto her shoulder and shut the driver’s door. They trekked silently up to the entrance of St. Charity’s, the only noise coming from the two of them was the clicking of Hazel’s small heels against the asphalt.

She opened the door for him, earning a muttered and begrudging thanks. The inside of the hospital felt and smelled like every other hospital. It was cold, it smelled like a mix between something artificially sweet and something rubbery, and it felt cold and unattached to reality. Like this hospital was just a pit stop on the track of a universe.

He was somewhat cringing at himself for thinking that, because that sounded way too edgy to be being thought by a thirty-year-old man.

Hazel waved at the man sitting at the front desk (“Hi, Lester!” she’d called, and the man was too busy staring at some shitty manga to reply), and then led Nico into an elevator.

“What floor?” Nico asked, hand hovering in front of the buttons.

“Four,” Hazel said, then gave Nico an exasperated sidelong glance, “and get in a better mood, please.”

“I’m in a just fine mood!” Nico retaliated, stabbing the button for floor four as hard as he possibly could to emphasize that he was, in fact, in a just fine mood.

Hazel didn’t break eye contact and just raised her eyes in a question of ‘really?’ that Nico didn’t even humor with an answer.

He leaned back against the wall of the elevator with a childish huff. He didn’t know how Hazel responded because she didn’t verbally, but he had a feeling she was getting slightly annoyed with him.

At the elevator’s ding, they both exited it and Hazel pointed him down the hallway to the room.

She talked as they walked. “There’s going to be seven or so.”

“At least it’s not too many,” Nico relented. Hazel was counting numbers on the doors and she paused when they got to 413 on the right side.

She pulled her key ring out of her purse and flicked through her set of keys until she found the right one. She spoke as she unlocked the door. “Since I’m hosting this, we should be the first ones there-,”

But when she opened the door, there was already a man standing there. Tall, blond, and wearing a doctor’s coat over slacks. He was fiddling with her souvenir chihuahua bobblehead from Mexico.

“Will?” Hazel asked surprised. The man jumped and straightened up a little, but relaxed when he saw it was Hazel.

“Oh, Hazel…” he chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck, “Sorry, I got in early and my patient canceled their appointment this morning, so, um…” he shrugged, “I guess I’m going to be early instead of late?”

Hazel shook herself out of shock rather quickly, smiling at Will and setting her purse on her desk. Will backed away from it.

“Well, Doctor Solace,” Hazel said, “I am so glad you decided to join us, after all.”

Doctor? Nico looked Will up and down. He wasn’t a guy he’d take as a doctor. Maybe a retail salesman or an instructor for some water-based sport, but not a doctor. Will caught him looking and smiled.

“Uh, hey! You’re Nico, right?” He held out a hand, which forced Nico to awkwardly cross the room to shake it.

“Hazel talks about you all the time. You and Emily-Marie, that is. If Frank didn’t work here, I wouldn’t know he existed!”

He heard Hazel break out in laughter across the room, which caused Will’s annoying smile to upgrade into a similar laugh. Nico breathed out his nose a little, the corner of his lip curving up just slightly so he didn’t seem like a complete asshole.

“You two can sit. Once everyone gets here, we’ll play it by ear,” Hazel told them, indicating the chairs that were set up in a circle in the medium-sized office.

Nico sat, and Will plopped himself down in the chair right next to him. He didn’t initiate conversation, thankfully, but did he really have to sit _right there?_ What was this guy’s deal, anyway? Was he here to help Hazel out, or was he here to be a part of the actual support group?

It struck Nico that this smiley and bright and seemingly sunny guy would have tried to kill himself is he was in it for the support. Nico had always seen people who tried to commit suicide as people like him: gloomy, sad, isolated, and alone. Yet Doctor Solace seemed cheery as he could ever be.

It weirded him out.

The door creaked open. Nico looked up at the clock above the door. It was 11:00 on the dot, the exact time of the meeting.

“I’m here for the, well, the support group.”

Nico could more likely believe this one had tried to kill herself. She was blonde, tall but not strangely tall for a woman, and she had a pair of piercing gray eyes that seemed somewhat glassy. She held herself properly, but timidly, as if she were scared of touching anything or anyone in the room. The weirdest feature of all, perhaps, were the white gloves that she wore on her hands. Her fingers wiggled almost anxiously as she waited for a response from Hazel.

His sister gave her one. “Oh, yes! Just come in sit down.”

She nodded, taking a glance at Nico and Will. Will greeted her verbally and Nico gave her a pathetic little wave.

“I’d…” she cleared her throat and tried again, voice firmer this time, “I’d prefer to stand, thank you.”

“Of course. Whatever makes you most comfortable.”

She seemed relieved at Hazel’s allowance and she stood a few chairs down and around the circle from the pair of men.

The next person to come in was a man. He was also blond, tall, and blue-eyed, but his hair was lighter and his eyes were, too, and he was much more quote-unquote “ripped”. The sleeves of his button-up shirt were rolled up and he wore a pair of blue jeans. Nico couldn’t help but notice he looked like the dad of a perfect family with a beautiful house and easy-going life.

This one had tried to kill himself, too.

Nico took a deep breath. He had to stop thinking about this.

The one after that one was a black-haired man with pretty eyes. Nico felt his chest tighten at the sight of him, in pity, mostly, because he wheeled in on a wheelchair. Then another woman, then some Hispanic man, and they all sat together in a big circle of chairs (except the female blonde because she didn’t want to) and they all sat expectantly, waiting for Hazel to say something that would break this terrible silence. Hazel situated herself when the people stopped filing in. Her smile looked as bright and blinding as all of her other ones.

“So,” Hazel prompted, in the seat next to yours, so you were sandwiched between two doctors, “Who wants to introduce themselves?”

There was a long silence where no one wanted to speak. That was, until, the Hispanic rolled his shoulders and sat up.

“They call me Leo Valdez.”

Hazel brightened when the man contributed to the group and gave him one of her signature sweet smiles. “Okay, great! Do you want to tell the group anything about yourself?”

He clicked his tongue and closed one of his eyes as if in heavy thought. “Well….” he drawled, “I like niche pornography and drinking myself into a state of paralysis.”

Hazel blinked. A look of doe-like confusion showed on her face and her smile faltered. “Oh, well, I…” she cleared her throat, “That’s certainly something. Anyone else…?”

The tan girl sat forward. “I’m Piper McLean. I’m a stripper-,” at this the Hispanic man ‘woo-ed’ a little bit and she scowled at him, “-and I’ve got HPD.”

Hazel nodded. “Histrionic?”

Piper took in a deep breath and puffed her cheeks before exhaling. “Yeah. Histrionic. Small issues with kleptomania, too.”

Then, without prompting, the dark-haired one spoke up, too. “Percy Jackson. I’m a- well, was a swimmer.”

There was a small silence as everyone took him in. He was the first one Nico felt bad for. He anxiously ran his fingers over the ridges in the wheels of his wheelchair. Nico couldn’t imagine being a swimmer and then just…

He swallowed thickly. “I, uh, got into a car crash half a year ago. Drunk driver, they thought. He died in the collision, but, um,” he shrugged and laughed half-heartedly, “I guess I was lucky.”

The only sound after Percy’s voice died down was the buzz of the fan.

“Well, shit, who’s gonna go on after Beyoncé, eh? Who can top that and make us sympathize with them?” Leo snarked, raising an eyebrow and looking around the circle. “Well?”

The blonde one, not Will, the other one, took a deep breath. “Jason Grace. I’m- well, sort of- in the Air Force. I’ve got a, um…” he glanced wearily at Percy, “...gambling addiction.”

Percy was trying his damndest not to look at anyone. Maybe it was hard to be the most pitied in the room, Nico didn’t know, because he never thought it was hard to be pitied. Annoying, yes, but not difficult. But, in Percy’s case…

Hazel looked at Nico, and he froze. Will saw and took that as an indication to say. “I’m Will Solace.”

He didn’t say anything further than that. Hazel prompted him with a quiet ‘and?’ and he continued, with a reluctant little chuckle, “Uh, my wife left me recently.”

Oh. So that’s why he’d tried to do it.

The blonde woman spoke up after a short-lived silence. “I’m Annabeth Chase. It’s a, er, _pleasure_ to meet you all. I’ve got…” she anxiously tugged at her gloves, “well, I’ve got mysophobia. And OCPD.”

“Mysophobia?” Piper asked, a perfectly trimmed eyebrow arched.

“Well, uh, perhaps better known as verminophobia, bacillophobia, bacteriophobia…” she trailed off when she noticed everyone staring at her in confusion, “Germophobia is the most common term. I’m afraid of germs.”

Piper humphed and her eyebrow retracted down her face. After her eyes were off Annabeth’s, Nico slowly realized he was the only one who hadn’t said anything. He bit his bottom lip, looked over at Hazel, who nodded at him. He sighed and said, “I’m Nico di Angelo. My sister died two years ago.”

He didn’t feel the usual pity. He got understanding nods and what looked like a slightly empathetic half eye roll and a shoulder shrug from Leo Valdez. It was… nice not feeling like the black sheep. They were all black sheep here.

“Now that we’ve all gotten to know each other a tad,” Hazel spoke up, “I think y’all should know I’ve never run a support group before. Really, I’m playing this all by ear. So, look, if any of you want to take this on a tangent, I’m willing to let ya.”

There were no volunteers.

Well, there was Valdez, who said, “This is a rather rag-tag group of cowardly fucks who thought that death was the answer for some damned reason. I think I like you guys.”

Leo looked over everyone, who had given him virtually no response. “You guys are no fuckin’ fun, I’ll tell you that.”

“Please refrain from cursing,” Annabeth spoke up suddenly, and then all eyes were back on her.

“I’ll say whatever the hell I want to,” Leo retorted, “Fuck you mean ‘no cursing’?”

“Why don’t you just listen to her?” Percy spoke up, and Leo snorted.

“And why should I, Mr. White Knight?”

“Can you not fight? This is supposed to be an accepting space-,” Piper spoke up and Leo immediately came down on her with: “Oh, can it, whore, this is an accepting space and those places usually have free speech.”

“What’d you call me?” she demanded, “You wanna say that to my fucking face, asshole?”

“Please don’t curse,” Annabeth repeated herself.

Piper shot back at her, “Hey, blondie, the adults are fighting over here. Grow up.”

“That’s not appro-,” Hazel started to cut them off but Percy began yakking on Leo again, and Piper, too, this time.

“Hey, how about you two respect her wishes?” he questioned narrowing his eyes.

“Look, babe, if you think I’m gonna think you’re wiser than I am just because your legs don’t-,” Piper started angrily, but was cut off when Percy interrupted with:

“Or maybe I think that because you’re a fucking slu-,”

“I’m asking as politely as I can, _do not curse_.”

“Annabeth, you’re only making things worse, can’t you-,”

“Oh, so now Grace’s talking. Welcome to the fuckin’ fight club, buddy.”

“Leo, are you always such an enormous prick?”

“Only when it counts, darling.”

“Can’t you all just let Hazel run her group?” Will spoke up, exasperated.

“Hey, shut it, Doc.”

“Can you all please just _be quiet?_ ”

“Bitch-,”

“Don’t call her a bitch!”

“Well, fine. Cunt-,”

“Don’t think I can’t fuck you up-,”

“All of you!” Hazel shouted suddenly, and then seven pairs of eyes were all on her.

“Thank you,” she said, voice hard and face stern, “But I think this concludes our first meeting. Be back in two days. And try not to be insensitive pricks next time.”

“Hey-,” Leo tried to speak up for himself, but Jason shoved him none too lightly and tossed him a disapproving look. Everyone filed out, except for Percy, who waited until everyone was gone before wheeling himself out.

Will left after he did, placing a comforting hand on Hazel’s shoulder a moment before leaving.

“That went horribly,” Nico put bluntly. Hazel’s face fell into her hands.

“I know,” she said, her voice coming out muffled, “It went absolutely awful.”

Nico looked over at her and gave her a pat on the back. “It’ll go better next time.”

Hazel only groaned into her palms.


End file.
